56 GLOOSCAP AND OTHER STORIES

ered in them to make homes there for a little while.

The Indians were on the watch to catch these smelts, and the bears were too. The Indians knew that the bears fished for smelts at this time, so they watched for bears as well as for smelts.

One day a hunter was looking for bear tracks, and he found the tracks of an old bear and two cubs; and with these tracks, he saw marks like those made by the naked feet of a little child.

“This is a queer looking bear’s track,” he thought. “There is something remarkable about this, I must watch.”

So the next day at sundown, when the smelts would be most abundant, the man watched near the tracks for the bears. Presently he heard some one coming toward him, talking very busily as he came. Soon he saw an old mother bear, leading the way; and behind her were two cubs and a small, naked boy about five years old.

The boy and the cubs were talking together. The hunter could hear and understand every word the little boy said; but the talk of the little bears sounded to him like the murmur of young bears only.

The hunter watched them. He saw the old bear take a net, and hold it in the stream, while the little boy went further down stream, and drove the smelts into the net. And then the